‘The people spoke': Dave Brat talks to Glenn about his victory over Eric Cantor

by Meghan

Wednesday, Jun 11, 2014 at 1:29 PM EDT

On Tuesday, Tea Party-backed economics professor Dave Brat defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in an election that was both historic and surprising. Brat will now face Democratic challenger and fellow professor Jack Trammell in November.

Despite being tremendously outspent in a race that was written off a long time ago by the mainstream media, Brat’s Constitutionally based campaign platform resonated with voters in Virginia’s 7th district who were frustrated with the status quo. On radio this morning, Brat joined Glenn to discuss his victory and what comes next.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Following Brat’s victory, Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wasted no time classifying Brat as one of those pesky right wing extremists:

Tonight’s result in Virginia settles the debate once and for all – the Tea Party has taken control of the Republican Party. Period… It’s clear the GOP has redefined ‘far right.’ Democrats on the other hand have nominated a mainstream candidate who will proudly represent this district and I look forward to his victory in November.

“They are the party that claims they want to work across the aisle. They haven’t met me,” Brat said. “Everyone on the news last night is asking, ‘Who’s Dave Brat?’ The one thing they know is he’s a bad guy – before they even meet me. So how do you work across the aisle when you are sharing that bad blood right up front?”

The narrative in the mainstream media, meanwhile, is that voters were reacting purely to Cantor’s stance on immigration reform and amnesty when they chose to vote for Brat. Glenn asked Brat to explain why he believes he was able to win.

“What happened is pretty simple: You go door-to-door… with a basic premise that is ‘how do you think Washington, D.C. is doing?’ And every single person… said, ‘It’s absolutely broken,’” Brat explained. “So then the question is: Who’s running D.C.? And the answer is: Eric Cantor and establishment Republicans and Democrats.”

“So amnesty is a big part of that. But it has to do with debt and deficits, not coming back and visiting your constituents, not holding town halls,” he continued. “That’s what happened… Our volunteers went out and met with the people. The people spoke. And that’s the vote.”

As we watch the Obama Administration continue to act outside of the rule of law on issues ranging from student loans to immigration reform to prisoner exchanges, Glenn asked Brat what can be done to fix the mess that is Washington D.C.

“[Congress] just need to assert [its] representative role and to take back this executive presidency and to take their role back from the judiciary – who is running the country instead of just interpreting the law,” Brat said. “We’re lacking true leadership, and we ran on that and we won on that. So the Republican creed is perfectly fine. We just have to follow that Republican creed, and we would do very well. It emphasizes all those American principles we are talking about.”

Ultimately, Brat’s campaign focused on finding solutions to some of the most important issues plaguing this county, and that is what he will continue to discuss ahead of the November general election.

“I’m running 100% Republican on the creed. The Republican principles are great. We need to follow them. A lot of Republicans do – a lot of young blood in there are following that creed. So it is not about personalities. It is about principles. Always has been.”

TheBlaze Radio Network’s Doc Thompson and Skip LaCombe, who were among the first to give Brat a national platform, also spoke to the congressional candidate this morning. Listen to the interview via The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson below:

Front page image courtesy of the AP

Anonymous

To head off the trolls, when Brat says “Republican principles” he is referring to just that, and not the non-existant-or-maybe-changing-whenever-the-wind-blows so-called “principles” of today’s Republican Party…

Anonymous

I don’t see how Boehner can survive as speaker after this.

Anonymous

The latest polls (see Reuters/Ipsos) would suggest that the majority of registered voters are now “extremists” who are “out of the mainstream”.

Vienta76

You couldn’t ay me to be “mainstream”….as I refuse to take any money in exchange for my ability to think freely and project logical thought and common sense….

poor Debbie..that chick is so far out in space….she’s a nasty Liberal stooge and yet she has a nerve to cry about the right wing? every week there’s another idiotic comment coming from her.

Anonymous

No one listens to her. She says that whacked out garbage because she wants attention. She can’t stand it when she is out of the spotlight for a single moment.

David D

I hope my Senators from TX are watching…either getting on board w/ a constitutional agenda = small government policies or YOUR NEXT!!!

Jim

Damn rt brotha!

Nunya Bidness

Your Senators from Texas? Do you mean Ted Cruz? He’s been on board with that notion since day 1. Senator Cornyn needs to go, but Cruz is solid!

Boo2

WooHoo! Great job Dave!
Now on to the next primary with a CONSERVATIVE trying to get ahead of a RINO. It can be done! How bad do we/they want it?! Door-to-door. Not polls that call the same biased people every time! I’ve NEVER been called and I’ve been voting for 45 years!
The Washerwoman is just that… She washes away the filth of the democRats to make them ‘look’ clean and shiny so the lo-fo’s only see the surface. Too bad they can’t see and think for themselves.

Anonymous

In 2010, we had a strong Democratic representative who had all the money and notoriety….he was a shoe in….even a bunch of the local “Republican superpowers” made a damn commercial for him and here is our little tea party candidate, broke, but a solid Constitutional young black man…we were told we were crazy if we thought we could win….no money to speak of….but money does not an election make….every Saturday for months, we had neighborhood walks and we met people, we shook their hands, and we asked for their votes and we WON….the 16 years of the Democrat went south. Money does not win elections and this is another example of it. Would like to mention that the media is ignoring the Texas establishment Congressman Hall who had been in office almost his entire life just got beat by a tea party candidate.

Boo2

That is so cool! People are ready to ring their hands and have a pity party for themselves over the mean old Dems.
But look what some ingenuity and some willingness to work, tirelessly, can do! Your young man DEFEATED that senior democrat! How? Door-to-door, pressing some hands, LISTENING to people not the ‘chosen few’ inside the Beltway.
Great to hear!
And I did not know about the fellow from Texas defeating establishment! Great!

Karl Dietrich

I used to get “Cut DC” emails from Cantor, untill I told him what else he could cut;
the FDA, HUD, EPA, DEA, etc. Then I stopped getting emails from him.

Lesia Mitchell

I think Arizona should load them all up and take them to Washington DC and drop them off at the Washington Mall!!! Or give them water and gas turn them around and drop them back off on the border!!

Anonymous

Don’t forget in dumping a large number of them also in New York and California ,Mass, R.I they are for all this BS placing them in Republicans states to turn the states blue ,give them a taste of their own medicine !!!

landofaahs

Sometimes the events happen like the 10’s of thousands of illegals dumping in across the border at just the right time. Timing is everything.

Susan Elfers-Warren

So happy for Dave Brat to give the Guys-on-the-Potty (GOP) a big wake-up call! Maybe now they’ll dump and get off the pot!

Wulf

I’ve been hearing for years the “people are waking up” and “people are angry” for examples why we see these elections results.

Perhaps I’m cynical, but I don’t trust anyone who is elected to Congress. The globalists have such a lock on the system that I doubt they’ll allow honest folks to be elected. We have a one party system, and the most patriotic thing to do is simply stop voting. I realize this won’t be a popular stance, but it’s what I believe.

Anonymous

There is only one problem. This morning on Fox News, Laura Ingram, a huge backer of Brat, flat out stated the TEA Party was not engaged in his campaign at all. Also, he received no money from TEA Party groups. They wrote off his camapign and walked away early on. She said they had to drag them kicking and screaming to the table and that was only at the very last minute. So the media narrative is apparently wrong.

Crassus

You can bet your last dollar that the Tea Party is taking credit for Brat’s win. Kudos to Laura Ingraham for speaking out and putting some of these Tea Party frauds in their place. I don’t care what anyone says. The Tea Party movement has lost its way. Its leaders are more interested in getting their pictures in the newspaper and getting on television for a 15 second blurb than actually accomplishing anything. Sure, they’ll be glad to take donations from the hard earned dollars of patriotic Americans but some of these “groups” have become as establishment as the GOP establishment.

http://www.absoluteintensity.com dennis reilly

clearly wasserman schultz doesn’t believe in judging individuals by the content of their character, I don’t see her down at the border helping those poor kids crossing the border, what a hypocrite

Anonymous

He needs to change his last name. Do you know how many jokes there will be about him if the Teas don’t get their way? I hope for everyone’s sake he stays true to himself like the voters and various talk hosts want. That could be hard, though seeing as power is really heady and all sorts of lobbyists and secret groups are ready, willing and able t o give politicians anything in order to get votes. It’s the lobbyists who run things in Washington.

Anonymous

I think, even though it’s not what I want, that we will have to compromise some on the immigration issue in order to get the Latino votes. Those votes are crucial. I worry that the Tea Party’s views are coming across as too set in cement. That failure to appear humane could cost us the election. After all these years of liberal, incompetent leadership, I am willing to compromise a tad to get the imbeciles out of the White House and get our country moving in the right direction. Sometimes you have to play the game to get where you want to be, and I don’t see any signs of the Tea Party being flexible enough to do that.

Anonymous

It about time and we can celebrate that the sleeping giant of we the people is starting to wake up !!!! They are throwing out or voting out all these false conservative Republicans that talk the conservative talk to get elected ,but do the opposite with their voting and backing the liberal progressive agenda policy !!! Plus people starting not to believe in all the BS from left wing news media and the progressives and the world renown con- artist our President obama that Tea Party is dead this BS is the furthest thing from the truth just BS !!! In boxing terms the Tea Party was on the receiving end of a illegal low blow by obama IRS and still coming back strong !! All the left wing news media are doing is fixing the odds in favor of the false conservatives or the progressive by saying you be wasting your vote & funding on the Tea Party candidate they cannot win same thing as goons drugging a boxer water so he be weak in a fight or election match!!! I say BS to that lie ,many of the people will no longer be a sucker to that blatant vicious lie !!!!!! To the Tea Party you go now and bring back our country as we use to know it !!! Where our country government representatives will listen to the people and be reflective with their voting to the people, restore our privacy,freedoms,rights and can be a individual not a be a mindless cog for collective of the royal elites !! TEA PARTY STRONG !!!! TEA PARTY STRONG !!!!!! How can anyone root or be for a boxer or back a candidate that can only win if the fight or elections is fixed in underhanded way ,illegally, by goons who are against a fair fight or elections !!!!??????????

Anonymous

Maybe the TEA PARTY can also help in returning our country to elections that are fair and honest ,honest reporting on candidates or boxers !! With no referee or government judge on the take of the royal elite goons !!! P.S stop being so naive to all the BS obama,Progressives,left wing news media putting out !!!!!!!!!!! When they are talking to you they’re are full of crap !!!

landofaahs

I read I think in Drudge that the left were blaming Mark Levin and Laura Ingram for Cantor’s loss and said it was anti-jewish. They must not realize that Mark Levin is a jew. Oh well, the left has never been accused of being overly smart.

Shane

I don’t know if I am the only one of this mindset, but I believe the establishment Republicans lack of action on violation after violation of law on the part of the Obama Administration has NOTHING to do with fear. And everything to do with power!

They are part of the bigger Progressive mindset and just want to amass the same power and beyond should they be put back in. Look at the Democrats. They cried bloody murder over GWB’s violations. Yet, soon as they got in they did the same and worse. Establishment Republicans are in lock step with Establishment Democrats.

Anonymous

Please advise. I heard this was an open primary allowing Dems to vote as well as the GOP. If that is the case the Dems used this primary to get rid of the more feared moderate Cantor threat.

bumpkin

Congratulations, Mr. Brat!

Anonymous

Dippy Washerwoman Schitz says it all, all too often. This is a Jewess? Embarassing!